The Development Of Novice English Teachers' Practical Knowledge

Since the early 1980s, teacher knowledge has become a focus of teacher education research. Researchers have enlarged the concept of teacher knowledge and established different models to explore the knowledge with which teachers can teach effectively. Scholars achieved the agreement on the concept of "teachers have a lot of practical knowledge" and realized that teachers' practical knowledge can optimize teaching practice and enrich teachers' educational theory. Thus, teachers'knowledge and professional development has become one of the hottest issues in the teacher education study both at home and abroad. Teachers'practical knowledge is the central themes within the field of language teacher education (Borg,2009). This study aims to explore the development of teachers'practical knowledge which is promoted through teacher learning and reflection in the Community of practice (COP). To be specific, this paper attempts to study 1) what components of teachers'practical knowledge do the novices lack? 2) What facilitates the development of novice teachers'TPK and to what extent?The use of novice teachers as the target group is justified by the importance of first year processes in relation to later career stages and professional development of teachers. The education of novices is of great importance. One reason is that the novice teachers always encounter difficulties at the beginning of their teaching because they relatively lack of practical knowledge or skills. The initial years of teaching have been characterized as a kind of'praxis shock' caused by the heavy amount of work and responsibility that teachers face for the first time; they are commonly described as a'crisis'or a'sink or swim experience'in which teachers have to create coping strategies to face difficult situations (Ruohotie-Lyhty,2011).Another reason is that novice is the initial stage of teachers'professional development, which lays a solid foundation for teachers'life-long professional development. Teachers'practical knowledge is the production of the practical discourse and thinking as well as the foundation of teachers' professional development (Chen Xiangming,2003).The components of teachers' practical knowledge proposed by Chen Xiangming (2003) are adopted. Two novice English teachers, one with no teaching experience and the other with one year's teaching experience, participated in this study. Our pilot study showed that the novice teachers had already got some TPK during pre-service teacher education, but were still lack of interpersonal knowledge, situational knowledge and critical reflection, which were crucial for their effective teaching and further professional development. Hence this study focused on exploring the development of the novice English teachers'interpersonal knowledge, situational knowledge and critical reflection based on constructivism learning theory and reflective teaching. The data were collected from interviews, classroom observation and journal writings.We found that learning and reflection in COP had contributed greatly to novices' growth of TPK. The factors facilitating the development of novices' TPK were internal factors (such as their beliefs and problem consciousness) and external factors (such as their colleagues and students as well as school culture). Learning and reflection by themselves; interaction with other teachers in the COP and interaction with the students promoting more learning and reflection, contributed to the growth of novices'TPK. It is hoped that this thesis might serve as a foundation for the studies within the field of novice English teachers'TPK development, and gives lights to pre-service language teacher education as well.